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But Mnaseas of Patra, in his Periplus, says that the fish
in the river Clitor are not dumb; though Aristotle has stated
in writing that the only fishes which have any voice are the
scarus and the river-hog. And Philostephanus, who was a
Cyrenæan by birth, and a friend of Callimachus, in his treatise
on Extraordinary Rivers, says that in the river Aroanius,
which flows through Pheneum, there are fish which sing like
thrushes, and that they are called the poiciliæ. And Nympho-
dorus the Syracusan, in his Voyages, says that there are pike
in the river Helorus, and large eels, so tame that they take
bread out of the hands of any who bring it to them. And I
myself, and very likely many of you too, have seen cestres
tamed to the hand in the fountain of Arethusa, near Chalcis;
and eels, having silver and golden earrings, taking food from
any one who offered it to them, and entrails from the victims,
and fresh cheese. And Semus says, in the sixth book of his
Delias—“They say that a boy once dipped a ewer into the
well, and brought water to some Athenians who were sacri-
ficing at Delos, to wash their hands with; and he brought up,
as it happened, some fish in the ewer along with the water:
and that on this the soothsayers of the Delians told them that
they should become the lords of the sea.”

Athenaeus. The Deipnosophists. Or Banquet Of The Learned Of Athenaeus. London. Henry G. Bohn, York Street, Covent Garden. 1854.

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